3/3-5/09 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:05. On the way, I passed Marsha McComas out walking with their dog Brass. By the time I parked and got my boots on, they were at the property. I invited Marsha to come up and have a look at the project. We went up the new concrete stairs, opened up the cabin, and went inside for a nice chat. She told me that it had snowed a few inches overnight, but that it had rained cats and dogs all morning. It was beautiful and sunny when I arrived, so except for the new soggy snow, I wouldn't have known how hard it had rained. I was glad it had stopped.

After carrying my gear to the trailer, I replaced the Y-valve on the hose at the trailer. The old one was getting so stiff that the handle on one of the valves finally twisted off. Then, after lunch, I went up to the cabin and installed the last of the switch plates which I had brought with me. The lights and switches are now all finally ready for the scouts.

Next, I replaced the dead bulb in the motion light with a new one I had brought with me. In the process, Bert and Ernie came romping up and we went back down to the trailer to get their treats.

Since I had decided not to light any more fires in the stove until the scouts visit, I decided to stoke the stove with dry firewood so that a scout should be able to light it off with one match. I got a load of dry firewood from under the tarp and split it into various sizes of kindling. I used this plus some planer and scraper chips for tinder.

My right leg was bothering me quite a bit from a combination of the knee surgery and sciatica. I think each condition had aggravated the other so that I had a considerable amount of ache centered on my knee and my hip, but generally affecting my whole right leg and foot. I did a lot of experimenting with postures and movements to try to minimize the pain but I could not get it to go away completely. I just worked slowly as a result.

I spent some time putting things away in the cabin and tidying up. Then I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to take the voice recorder and dictate the contents of the storage bins that I had labeled the week before. When I finished the dictation, I went in for the night. I spent quite a bit of time icing my lower back and using a heating pad on my knee. This seemed to make the leg feel a lot better. I also used the heating pad several times during the night when the aching kept me awake. It seemed to help.

On Wednesday my leg still hurt but I went to work anyway. It was another beautiful sunny day with the bright new snow load on Nason Ridge looking gorgeous against the blue sky. I spent most of the morning installing a 2" PVC conduit riser in one corner of the pantry. I used the 2" hole saw to saw up through the top plate and also down through the lower plate and the floor. I had a piece of conduit left over from the electrical service installation that fit perfectly in these holes. This conduit will provide a raceway for phone wires and other low-voltage wires to run from the wiring closet at the top of the pantry to under the main floor. From the floor, the wires can then be routed to phone locations, the phone service entrance, or wherever else they need to go.

After lunch and a nap while icing my back and heating my knee, I went back to work and completely organized and cleaned the loft. I also spent some time putting more stuff away on the main floor. My leg hurt mildly the whole time.

On Thursday morning it snowed about 2 inches. Then it rained and melted away the new snow plus some of the old snow. There is only about a foot to 18 inches of snow left on the ground. It has been like a long slow protracted spring thaw ever since new year's day.

I was glad that the wiring is done for now. I put all the tools and wiring parts away with the good feeling that I wouldn't have to get them right back out again after the scout visit. Instead I'll turn my attention to other projects, like preparing for chinking, venting the loft ceiling, and maybe even building the loft staircase. I get these little glimpses of progress now and then.

After everything was put away, I glued a broken chair, swept the entire main floor, and vacuumed the floor. I left for home at 1:50.

3/6/09 Transcribed the voice dictation of the bin contents into a spreadsheet. Printed a list by bin number and also by alphabetical contents. My method worked slick. There are a few unintelligible entries that need to be fixed, but for the most part, it gave me exactly what I wanted. The bins will be more useful now.